Page:Rolland - Beethoven, tr. Hull, 1927.pdf/99

  paper, requesting all painters not to take my portrait without my consent, were I afraid of falling into perplexity over my own countenance. As to the matter of taking off my hat, it is altogether stupid, and at the same time too impolite for me to retaliate. Pray explain to him the truth about the walk.

Adieu. The devil take you.

Vienna, November 2, 1793.

Honoured Eleonore, my dearest friend.

I shall soon have been in this capital a whole year, yet only now do you receive a letter from me, but you were certainly constantly in my thoughts. Frequently, indeed, did I hold converse with you and your dear family, but, for the most part, not with the tranquility of mind which I should have liked. Then it was that the fatal quarrel hovered before me, and my former behaviour appeared to me so abominable. But the past cannot be undone, and what would I not give if I could blot out of my life my former conduct so dishonouring to me, so contrary to my character. Many circumstances, indeed, kept us at a distance from each other, and, as I presume, it was especially the insinuations resulting from conversations on either side